Arkansas lab didn't perform residue test

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas’ state crime lab says it didn’t perform gunshot residue testing on a man fatally shot in the head while handcuffed in a patrol car because it doesn’t do that kind of analysis on victims of homicides or suicides.

Jonesboro Police Chief Michael Yates told The Associated Press that the department had requested gunshot residue testing in the shooting death of 21-year-old Chavis Carter.

The lab’s chief criminalist, Lisa Channell, told the AP that kind of the testing can indicate whether a person was in an environment with gunshot residue, but not whether he or she pulled the trigger of a gun.

Police have been facing criticism after they said officers searched Carter twice but didn’t find a gun before he was fatally shot in a patrol car July 28.